Sachar, Louis. (2000). Holes. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 240 pp.

Grade Range: 6-9

Genre: contemporary fiction

Summary and Critique

Stanley Yelnats is an overweight middle-school student who has no friends and plenty of bad luck. He blames his bad luck on a family curse that has been passed down from his scandalous great-grandfather. Great-grandfather Yelnats broke a promise to a gypsy woman year ago, who in turn cursed the entire Yelnats family for generations to come. At the beginning of this story Stanley is wrongly convicted of stealing a pair of tennis shoes from a baseball star. Stanley is then given the option of going to jail or to a boy's camp. Camp appears to be the better option; however, Stanley soon discovers the horrors of Camp Green Lake.

Located in the middle of the Texas desert on a dry lake bed, Camp Green Lake is neither green nor does it have a lake. To punish the wayward boys, inmates are forced to dig holes five feet wide and five feet deep all day in the blazing summer heat. Dangers lurking in the desert include rattlesnakes, scorpions, and yellow-spotted lizards. The boys have to protect themselves not only from these creatures, but also from the nefarious warden who remains strangely obsessed with creating holes within the camp. Stanley soon figures out that the warden is making the boys dig in search of Kissin'Kate Barlow's buried treasure. Then the real adventure begins when Stanley runs away from camp in search of his friend, Zero.

A folktale about Kissin'Kate Barlow and the town of Green Lake is masterfully threaded throughout this novel. This is a novel that you can't put down, one with a fun plot, engaging characters, and a happy ending.

Awards

Newbery Medal

Winner of the National Book Award

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

An ALA Quick Pick

An ALA Notable Book

A New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year

Boston Globe–Horn Book Fiction Award

Themes/Topics

Challenges and Triumphs

Family

Friends and Enemies

Generations

Mystery

Humor

Author Information

Louis Sachar was born in New York, raised in California. Although he has a law degree, he chooses to write children's books full time. His dogs are the only ones allowed in his office while he is writing. Sachar, his wife, and daughter live in Austin, Texas.

http://www.louissachar.com/ Sachar's home page, featuring a biography, frequently asked questions, and a complete booklist.

Media Connections

Movies

Miracle of the Heart. (1986). Film depicts the life of a teenage boy who is caught stealing an automobile. He is sent to Boys Town where he is able to find his self-worth. The compassion of the adults at Boys Town and other youth help this young man turn his life around.

Sarafina. (1992). Movie based on the children of South Africa who fought against the oppressive apartheid government before the release of Nelson Mandela. Highlights the struggle of one girl in the rebellion. The movie is serious, graphic, and will need to be edited before class viewing.

The Shawshank Redemption. (1994). The protagonist in this movie is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. The story depicts the transformation of the prisoner's character.

Online Resources

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/sachar.htm Louis Sachar Teacher Resource Page. Contains teacher resources and lesson plans for Holes and other novels by Sachar.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol18/issue26/books.sachar.html Austin Chronicle biography of Louis Sachar

http://www.girlsandboystown.org/aboutus/index.asp Girls and Boys Town Web site. Highlights information about the organization and resources for parents and youth in need.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/law/ Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Outlaws and Rangers Web page. Highlights the efforts of Stephen F. Austin in ending lawlessness in Texas. Resources and links to famous rangers and outlaws.

http://www.wildtexas.com/wildguides/index.php Wild Texas Wild Life Identification Web site to research desert animals.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/mff/"Myths, Folktales, and Fairy Tales: Writing with Writers." Scholastic Web site: great for walking students through writing in these genres. The middle-school-level genre is myths. Jane Yolen has an easy-to-follow writer's workshop. You can link your students to this page and let them go! Great lesson! There are also numerous resources for teachers.

Related Texts

Zampino, Linda. (2001). A Guide for Using Holes in the Classroom. Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Materials, 48 pp. Teacher resource that includes related activities with vocabulary, critical thinking, and curriculum connections.

Curtis, Christopher, P. (1999). Bud, Not Buddy. New York: Delacorte Press, 245 pp. Newbery Medal Winner. Historical fiction in which a young orphan boy is trying to find his father in Michigan in the 1930's. Bud is"on the run" from orphanages and abusive foster homes.

Ryan, Pam, M. (2000). Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic Press, 262 pp. Winner of the Pura Belpré Award and mentioned as a YALSA"2001 Best Books for Young Adults." Esperanza and her mother leave Mexico to work as migrant farm-workers in Southern, California. They face many struggles including the harsh circumstances of life as migrant farm-workers and the beginning of the Great Depression. The author has a Web site with curriculum links: http://www.pammunozryan.com/

Schwartz, Virginia, F. (2000). Send One Angel Down. New York: Holiday House, 163 pp. Listed as a YALSA"2001 Best Books for Young Adults." Fictitious account of a slave child who is trying to protect his younger cousin, a mulatto daughter of the plantation owner, from the terrors of slavery.

Ruff, Ann. (1995). Outlaws in Petticoats and Other Notorious Women of Texas. Plano, Texas: Republic of Texas Press, 172 pp. This nonfiction book includes short accounts of some of Texas's most famous women-- heroines as well as outlaws.

Teaching Ideas

(1) In Holes, readers get a colorful sense of Stanley's rotten great-grandfather. The following activity will help students incorporate details about character into their writing based on their own experiences.

"Biographical Scrapbook Project" Students will imagine that it is 40-50 years into the future. A writer has approached each student and wants to write a biography about the teenager's life. The student will need to produce documents and personal items to give the writer a sense of the student's life. These items can include letters, memos, thank you notes, magazine/newspaper clippings, photos, passports, receipts, ticket stubs, and other items that the students choose. Students will be asked to compile a scrapbook of these useful items to give to the writer. The scrapbook should contain a minimum of 8 items.

Examples of these items that students could create include the following:

Letter revealing something about your character or about your current or future self.

Recollection (text) of an incident in the past.

Favorite story (text) that a relative likes to tell about you.

A list of favorite activities (present and future).

Favorite jokes, comic strips and/or movies.

Student-generated ideas are also welcome and encouraged.

[Activity adapted from the "Biographical Scrapbook Project" in Classroom Notes Plus, December 1996, by Carol J. Schowalter, El Roble Intermediate School Claremont, CA.]

(2) "Fighting Racism" Please write a response in your journal to the questions below. Use the following Web link to substantiate your opinion about the presence of racism today.

Describe evidence of prejudice/racism in the relationship of Kissin' Kate & Sam, "the Onion Man." Have attitudes and tolerance levels changed since then? Explain. How did the events in 1890 influence the story? Do you believe Zero's hardships at the camp are a reflection of prejudice/racism? Why

Ethnic Studies at USC site: http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/ethnicstudies/race_discrim_main.html

(3) "Myths, Legends, and Folktales" Two creative elements threaded into the novel Holes were the folktale about Kissin'Kate Barlow and the legend associated with the dry lakebed. Read"Myth-Writing Workshop with Jane Yolen" at http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/mff/mythswshop_index.htm.

The activity at this site guides students in writing an original myth based on life in their own town or state. Yolen provides teachers with both an example myth she has created and an outline of her step-by-step writing process.

(review written by Kerry Galea and edited by Amy Strecker)